BUMP!
So a couple of friends and I have been playing this again recently and have bought the Winds of Magic DLC. While I agree it's a bit expensive for what it is compared to the other DLCs, we're all enjoying it to be honest.
The general idea is that after you complete the Dark Omen map that comes with the DLC, Weaves are available to you. Weaves are a random map with a random modifier to the game and a random objective to complete the Weave.
Some examples
Modifiers
- Armoured units are tougher but when killed shroud you in a metal mist doing damage to enemies near you
- All enemies are invisible until they get close to you
- Upon death enemies drop brambles that slow and hurt you
- Lightning stikes occur around all players (happens occasionally, there's a circle to warn you and a time to get out of dodge, can also kill enemies)
Objectives
- Blow up locations with barrels (harder than it sounds as enemies are more consistent than on the normal game)
- Destroy Totems
- Destroy Essence Shards
- Carry Essence chunks to machines to destroy them
- Stand at a fracture to destroy it
- Kill things
In addition to this, the weapons and talents you bring into the Weave are completely independent of the normal game. You have 4 items that can be leveled with essence (what you get as a reward for doing Weaves, win or lose).
Melee weapon
Ranged Weapon (or second melee weapon depending on class)
Amulet
Cauldron
Leveling Weapons increases power of the weapon and unlocks slots on the weapon itself and inceases amount of 'blue coins' (see further on) to spend. There's about 12 'blue' stats slots and one orange Trait slot. All stats and traits cost something to add onto the weapon (i dunno what it's called, I'll call it blue coins). And the cost increases the more you place on, example level 1 is 10, level 2 is 20 etc. Some stats are more expensive and Traits are 100. You can add remove stats and traits when you want and you get a refund in blue coins, so you can play about however you want.
The amulet works the same, however it's based around the 3 character items you would normally have aswell as you class talents.
Leveling the Cauldron unlocks Weapon stats and Traits that can be used. E.g. attack speed on your weapons may only become available to use at a certain cauldron level or the Grenade Traits are available towards the higher end of the cauldron level.
The DLC also introduces Beastmen. They aren't bad, you have totem carriers that if they place down their totem it buffs all enemies in an area around it. There are archer units, I had I think 6-8 pinging arrows at me in a weave yesterday which was annoying. There are armoured ones which will bull charge you too. I think Beastmen might appear in normal mode if everyone has the DLC, but I won't swear to it. And each class also gets one more weapon.
All in all, we're enjoying the weaves. As I said, I think the full price is a bit much considering, I think ~£6.50 is what it should be - basically the same as the other DLC. Currently ~£7.50 on steam and it coinsides with the Free week of it (though you don't count as owning the DLC for the sake of the trial).
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